Read Online The Cruel Sea (1951) by Nicholas Monsarrat - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nicholas Monsarrat
Tags: WWII/Navel/Fiction
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been on the bridge from dusk until midnight – about eight hours altogether – the previous evening, and he badly needed sleep.
He yawned, and stretched, and called Ferraby, who had wandered to the wing of the bridge.
‘Think you can take her now, sub?’ he asked. ‘This is our course for the rest of the watch, and there’s nothing in the way. How about it?’
‘All right, sir. I—I’d like to.’
‘You can get me on the voice-pipe if anything turns up. Just watch out for those fishing boats, and if you have to alter course, go to seaward of them rather than inshore. But you’d better call me if there are a lot of them about.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘All right, then . . .’ He stayed for a few moments, watching the hills still looming clear to starboard, and the flashing light, which had been their mark for changing on to a new course, now just past the beam, and then he said: ‘She’s yours, sub,’ and turned to go. His seaboots rang on the bridge ladder, and died away, and Ferraby was left to himself.
He had never known such a moment in his life, and he found it difficult to accept without a twinge of near panic. The whole ship, with her weapons and her watchful lookouts and her sixty-odd men sleeping below, was now his: he could use her intricate machinery, alter her course and speed, head out for the open Atlantic or run straight on the rocks . . . He felt small and alone, in spite of the bridge lookouts and the signalman and the asdic rating who shared the watch with him: he was shivering, and he heard his heart thumping, and he wondered if he could bear it if they met a convoy, or if some accident – like the steering gear breaking down – brought on a sudden crisis. He wasn’t really fitted for this: he was a bank clerk, he was only twenty, he’d been commissioned for exactly eight weeks . . . But the minutes of uncertainty passed, as Compass Rose held her steady course and nothing happened to disturb it: she was, it seemed, a going concern, and possibly he knew just enough to supervise her without some catastrophic blunder which nothing could retrieve.
Presently he began to enjoy himself.
Leaning over the bridge rail, he could see the whole forepart of the ship clear in the moonlight: above him, the mast rolled through a slow, gentle arc against the dark sky: astern, their wake spreading and stretching out behind them was bounded by a thin line of phosphorescence which gave it a concise, formal beauty. He felt himself to be in the middle of a pattern, the focal point of their forceful advance: here was the bridge, the nerve centre, with its faint glow from the binnacle and the dark motionless bulk of the two lookouts marking each wing, and here was himself, who controlled it all and to whom all the lines of this pattern led. Sub-Lieutenant Ferraby, Officer-of-the-Watch – he grinned suddenly to himself, and felt, for a moment, almost heroic. No one in the bank would believe this. But he must write and tell Mavis about it, as soon as he could. She would believe it.
The half-hourly relief of the bridge personnel interrupted this train of thought, setting the seal on his responsibility.
‘Port lookout relieved, sir!’
‘Very good.’
‘Starboard lookout relieved, sir!’
‘Very good.’
And up the voice-pipe from the wheelhouse, where the quartermasters were changing over: ‘Course North, ten West, sir – engine half ahead – Able-Seaman Dykes on the wheel!’
‘Very good.’
At that moment he would not have been anywhere else in the world.
Presently the signalman of the watch, who had been standing by his side staring through his binoculars, straightened up and said: ‘Flashing light to starboard, sir.’
When Ferraby found the light he counted the flashes carefully. ‘That’s our next lighthouse,’ he said, when he had made sure of it. ‘It’s still a long way ahead, though.’
The signalman stamped his feet on the grating that ran the length of the forebridge,
He yawned, and stretched, and called Ferraby, who had wandered to the wing of the bridge.
‘Think you can take her now, sub?’ he asked. ‘This is our course for the rest of the watch, and there’s nothing in the way. How about it?’
‘All right, sir. I—I’d like to.’
‘You can get me on the voice-pipe if anything turns up. Just watch out for those fishing boats, and if you have to alter course, go to seaward of them rather than inshore. But you’d better call me if there are a lot of them about.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘All right, then . . .’ He stayed for a few moments, watching the hills still looming clear to starboard, and the flashing light, which had been their mark for changing on to a new course, now just past the beam, and then he said: ‘She’s yours, sub,’ and turned to go. His seaboots rang on the bridge ladder, and died away, and Ferraby was left to himself.
He had never known such a moment in his life, and he found it difficult to accept without a twinge of near panic. The whole ship, with her weapons and her watchful lookouts and her sixty-odd men sleeping below, was now his: he could use her intricate machinery, alter her course and speed, head out for the open Atlantic or run straight on the rocks . . . He felt small and alone, in spite of the bridge lookouts and the signalman and the asdic rating who shared the watch with him: he was shivering, and he heard his heart thumping, and he wondered if he could bear it if they met a convoy, or if some accident – like the steering gear breaking down – brought on a sudden crisis. He wasn’t really fitted for this: he was a bank clerk, he was only twenty, he’d been commissioned for exactly eight weeks . . . But the minutes of uncertainty passed, as Compass Rose held her steady course and nothing happened to disturb it: she was, it seemed, a going concern, and possibly he knew just enough to supervise her without some catastrophic blunder which nothing could retrieve.
Presently he began to enjoy himself.
Leaning over the bridge rail, he could see the whole forepart of the ship clear in the moonlight: above him, the mast rolled through a slow, gentle arc against the dark sky: astern, their wake spreading and stretching out behind them was bounded by a thin line of phosphorescence which gave it a concise, formal beauty. He felt himself to be in the middle of a pattern, the focal point of their forceful advance: here was the bridge, the nerve centre, with its faint glow from the binnacle and the dark motionless bulk of the two lookouts marking each wing, and here was himself, who controlled it all and to whom all the lines of this pattern led. Sub-Lieutenant Ferraby, Officer-of-the-Watch – he grinned suddenly to himself, and felt, for a moment, almost heroic. No one in the bank would believe this. But he must write and tell Mavis about it, as soon as he could. She would believe it.
The half-hourly relief of the bridge personnel interrupted this train of thought, setting the seal on his responsibility.
‘Port lookout relieved, sir!’
‘Very good.’
‘Starboard lookout relieved, sir!’
‘Very good.’
And up the voice-pipe from the wheelhouse, where the quartermasters were changing over: ‘Course North, ten West, sir – engine half ahead – Able-Seaman Dykes on the wheel!’
‘Very good.’
At that moment he would not have been anywhere else in the world.
Presently the signalman of the watch, who had been standing by his side staring through his binoculars, straightened up and said: ‘Flashing light to starboard, sir.’
When Ferraby found the light he counted the flashes carefully. ‘That’s our next lighthouse,’ he said, when he had made sure of it. ‘It’s still a long way ahead, though.’
The signalman stamped his feet on the grating that ran the length of the forebridge,
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